A Mercedes C-Class Is One Of The Best Ways To Make A 5am Drive Through London Bearable

It’s 4:59am. My alarm has just screamed into life. Whatever anyone says, this is a stupid time of the day to be awake. Unfortunately, though, I need to deliver a car from my sleepy commuter town to CT Editor Alex in London, and if I’m to do that before a day of furious content writing, I need to beat the traffic. And that means heading out at this ungodly hour.

Happily, the car in question is the new Mercedes C-Class, so maybe, just maybe, this early morning drive won’t be so bad.

After walking over to my driveway, I press the unlock button on the Merc’s key fob, which switches the front and rear lights on, and illuminates the door handles. No need to fumble around to open the door here. Another nice little addition is the backlit ‘Mercedes-Benz’ script which greets me on the door sills. Utterly pointless, but I like it.

I settle into the comfy leather electric driver’s seat and hit the start button to wake up the C220 Sport Bluetec’s 168bhp 2.1-litre turbodiesel engine. It’s an agricultural-sounding thing, but at least the C dampens the noise with lots of sound-proofing; you’re much less shielded in other Mercs with the same unit.

I drive for a couple of minutes through my deserted home town, and join the dual carriageway. Clearly, I’m not the only one who’s happy to get up at silly o’clock to get a quieter morning commute; the roads are reasonably busy, but moving nicely at least.

At this point, there’s nothing left to do but set the cruise control, crank up the volume on the superb Burmester sound system, and relax. And relaxing’s easy in the C. The C250 and C220s I drove at the car’s UK launch already rode nicely, but this example - which has smaller wheels and very high profile tyres - is in another league in terms of comfort. It glides along the tarmac in a way that makes this early morning drive so much more tolerable and less stressfull.

Sure, there are things about the C-Class I’m not fond of. That awful-looking tablet-style media system, for instance, and the nasty plastic piano black stuff which the centre console is coated with, which, by the way, already looks horribly scratched on our 5000-mile press car when bathed in the interior lighting. It’s also - despite being reasonably agile when you’re in the mood - no dynamic match for the ubiquitous BMW 3-series.

The trip has cemented in my mind the fact that if you clock a lot of miles, the C-Class is the car for you

But if you stop judging it on driver’s car terms, you realise it’s an amazing mile muncher. The day before I’d been frantically dashing from photo shoot to photo shoot, but the Merc just lapped it up, getting on with the job and making me feel much calmer in the process.

As the sun starts to come up - let into the cabin by the panoramic roof - I’m ploughing through north west London and nearing my journey’s end. I’ve missed most of the capital’s shocking morning traffic, although inevitably there are a couple of hold-ups thanks to some stupidly-timed traffic lights.

It’s properly light now, and I’ve just a few corners to go until I park up at Alex’s and head over to CT headquarters on the tube. A quick glance of the trip computer reveals that I’ve averaged 56mpg without really trying. The journey has taken me an hour and a half less than it would have done had I left a little later, but more importantly, the trip has cemented in my mind the fact that if you clock a lot of miles, the C-Class is the car for you. Sure it’s not cheap (the C220 Sport is £32,860 before options, and the ‘Premium Plus Package’ on our test car which includes the panoramic roof, snazzy lighting and incredible stereo is £2795), but what you’re getting feels classy and worth it.

As I hop out of the car, lock it and post the keys through Alex’s door (he’s not even up yet, the lazy git), I’m contented that the new C-Class more than lives up to its ‘baby S-Class’ pretensions.